The sale of antiquities (referred to in the past by the Arabic term ‘adiyat or antika) in Egypt was a legal and sanctioned trade up until 1983, when a new antiquities law (number 117) was issued that criminalized the practice and put an end to it. The law gave licensed antiquities dealers a year to legalize their status.

The first attempt at issuing a law that sought to protect antiquities was during the time of Mohamed Ali – in 1853 he issued a law that forbade the destruction and looting of archaeological sites and mentioned the need for the construction of a national museum for Egyptian antiquities based in Cairo. Practically however this law was ineffective, given the large number of diplomats involved in antiquities dealing at the time. In 1883, King Fouad issued another law to safeguard antiquities. This was followed by a series of laws issued over successive years 1912, 1926, 1951 and 1967 – none of them however criminalized the sale of antiquities, but allowed the practice to continue as long as it abided by certain criteria determined by the Antiquities Authority. This involved the submission of a request by the dealer to the Director-General of the Antiquities Authority in Cairo in order to obtain an antiquities license. It could be submitted any day of the year prior to the 25th of October and had to contain the following information: the name of the trader, his/her title, address and nationality. A number of these requests have been found in the Abydos Archive. The Antiquities Authority would accept these requests on a stamped paper valued at 3 piasters and the trader would be required to name the city/area where s/he would be working. From the archives we learn that two types of traders existed at the time, those who owned a store and the less well-off who simply laid their antiquities out on the street (togar farsh) (Fig. 1 and 2).

We were very lucky to find a number of these documents in the Abydos Archive and which listed the names of antiquities dealers who had been licensed to work in the areas managed by the Inspectorate of Sohag. For example, we have a particular document dated to 1942 which mentions the following dealers: Ahmed Abdel-Galil was an antiquities dealer from al-Araba al-Madfuna; Ishaq Muglaa Daoud, Sidrak Yacoub, Farag Guindi Botros, Hakim Hirs Bakhoum were antiquities’ dealers from Hanout in Akhmim; and finally the brothers Nasr Allah Abdel-Shahid and Khair Abdel-Shahid were antiquities’ dealers (togar farsh) from Akhmim (Fig. 3).

We also found an example of the ledger that was used by a shop-owning antiquities dealer, where he has daily entries that record all the objects in his store, each given its own serial number, as well as a description, dimensions and where it originated from. The name of the buyer and his/her occupation is also mentioned. On each page of the ledger is the signature of an antiquities inspector. Despite it being legal to sell antiquities during this time, there were nonetheless a number of measures taken by the Antiquities Authority that attempted to regulate the trade. For example it was illegal to sell antiquities that had no provenance, and such objects had to be showcased in the special gallery for the sale of antiquities in the Egyptian Museum.

An Arabic letter dated to 1922 and signed in English by Wainwright (Head Inspector of Middle Egypt during this time) mentions that a man was arrested after he was caught stealing antiquities from Abydos. Wainwright was of the opinion that the man be released but kept under surveillance. What is amusing about the letter however is that because Wainwright was impressed by the objects that had been confiscated, he suggests that they be put up for sale in the Egyptian Museum (Fig. 4).